my personal biases essay

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My Personal Biases, Essay Example

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Personally and professionally, my personal biases can sometimes cloud my first impression. When you first see someone, you may notice their attire or their personal hygiene. However, that shouldn’t get in the way of how that person is treated. From my own personal history, I have interacted with particular cultures more than others, and I have stayed within my circle of familiar religion, race, and ethnicity. However, as I have gone off to secondary school, I have been able to interact with different cultures, languages, ages, races, and genders, and ethnicities. My personal experiences with a myriad of individuals had allowed me to set aside any personal bias that I once had before I took this professional career path. My biases are strong enough at this point in my career or life to warrant a complete change. However, I do realize that the culture that I was raised in does reflect in certain situations in which I might be less patient.

Overall, my personal beliefs or biases do not clash with my professionalism in interacting with different individuals from various backgrounds. My own behavior and beliefs have been developed from my own personal experiences and culture, so I am sure that can be similar to others. Ways in which to address any personal biases within the professional nursing practice is to interact with different patients and other nurses from different backgrounds. In the medical field, I will meet numerous individuals that vary by ethnicity, race, culture, religion, and so on. It is imperative that for me to develop an understanding of different people, to interact closely and learn. This could also apply to homeless individuals in which many, including myself at one time misjudged. Working with people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder is a way in which to learn about issues that often get ignored in the political arena. In dealing with numerous peoples, my personal experiences will have an impact on any lasting personal biases that could hinder me from adequately or efficiently treating different patients.

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A Self-Inventory on Personal Biases Essay

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Work is one of the most significant areas of life where bias can play a significant role. However, it is important to note that most stereotypes do not stem from bad intentions but deeply held, unconscious beliefs. They are formed in the brain over many years as a result of the interaction of various factors, which people often cannot control. Biases can lead to unfair and irrational conclusions about how things should be done and degrade the overall quality of employee performance. Prejudice, stigma, and discrimination in health care, for example, are known to exacerbate injustice and social inequality (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). This paper will identify my chosen major, identify my personal bias and its nature, and analyze strategies to reduce it.

I think I have a bias about people’s weight because I think how fat or thin a person is largely up to them. I think this prejudice is an implicit one because I never talk about it openly. I do not show disdain for people who are too fat or too thin. However, I always keep in mind the idea that problems related to a person’s weight can be easily solved. All it takes is to keep an eye on what constitutes a person’s diet.

My specialty is education in nursing, so my future responsibilities will include training other professionals. It is apparent that since teachers are human beings, too, they undoubtedly have stereotypes. However, spreading these stereotypes to subordinates or students is fraught with a deterioration in the quality of teaching. Those judgments that people have that are not of scientific persuasion should not affect the educational process in any way.

From time to time, everyone falls under the influence of stereotypes. Society creates a certain way of thinking, which a person uses in life, not having experience in some issues. While the templates used are most often useless and do not give the opportunity to correctly perceive situations, to solve specific problems. In the fight against stereotypes, critical thinking development will help. This means checking sources of information, paying attention to one’s own thoughts, and destroying myths by qualitatively checking judgments.

Critical thinking is one of the key skills of the XXI century, allowing people to analyze information, draw conclusions and make decisions based on the analysis. It is also a skill that helps individuals form their own opinions and defend their positions. Due to critical thinking, people become able to see inconsistencies and contradictions. They can screen out inaccurate data and separate facts from their interpretations. Today’s nurse educators must not only be able to perform routine activities well but also be able to make non-standard decisions and find new ways and approaches to solve problems. People who can intelligently conduct a discussion and prove their point of view are highly valued. Critical thinking helps to evaluate work tasks from different sides and helps to avoid mistakes related to inaccuracy or insufficiency of information. The extent to which clinical practice is minimized by bias determines how effectively patients will be treated (Groves et al., 2021). Therefore, the elimination of stereotypes should be the primary goal of nursing educators. I think that doing this assignment made me realize the importance of this kind of fighting prejudice.

FitzGerald, C., & Hurst, S. (2017). Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: A systematic review. BMC Medical Ethics, 18 (19), 1-18. Web.

Groves, P. S., Bunch, J. L., & Sabin, J. A. (2021). Nurse bias and nursing care disparities related to patient characteristics: A scoping review of the quantitative and qualitative evidence. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 30 (23-24), 3385–3397. Web.

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Are You Aware of Your Biases?

Carmen Acton

Four ways to overcome your shortcomings and be a more inclusive leader.

Often, it’s easy to “call out” people when we notice their microaggressions or biased behaviors. But it can be equally challenging to recognize and acknowledge our own unconscious biases. That said, becoming aware of your shortcomings can help you hone your leadership style, especially when you’re a new manager.

The first step is to acknowledge that you have biases and educate yourself to do better. Ask yourself: Do I hold stereotypes or assumptions about a particular social group? As a manager, do I acknowledge and leverage differences on my team? Use your answers to help you unlearn your unconscious assumptions.
When someone calls out your unconscious biases, try not to get defensive. Rather, assume positive intent and use their feedback as an opportunity to learn.
Reach out to a diverse group of peers to understand how they perceive you, and seek continuous feedback. These peers can also become “accountability buddies” who help you stay on track when you decide to change your behaviors.
Embrace diverse perspectives. If your close circle “looks” just like you, it’s time to build a more diverse network. Join an employee resource group or look to connect with colleagues whose backgrounds are different than your own.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

When I became a manager for the first time, I had a clear vision of my leadership style: I wanted to value my team and treat everyone with respect. Once I took charge, I learned that leadership wasn’t as simple as I’d first imagined it.

Carmen Acton , MBA, PCC, is a Leadership Impact Coach and Process Consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Carmen has worked in a succession of corporate leadership roles in a variety of disciplines ranging from Safety Engineering to Employee and Leadership Development. She has worked with clients in the oil and gas, food and beverage, technology, and health care sectors, to name a few. Her passion is helping clients elevate their leadership capabilities by sparking insights and actions that matter. She works with motivated, high-potential leaders to fully embrace humanity while elevating leadership and business performance in a complex world.

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Reflecting Upon Our Own Biases: All Ages

The work continues.

No matter how open-minded or accepting we believe ourselves to be, and no matter how good a job we think we are doing when it comes to raising tolerant children, this fact remains: We all carry prejudice and biases.

The personal biases we hold as parents significantly influence what we teach, and don't teach, our children about valuing difference.

Some of us may have internalized negative attitudes about our identity groups because of racism and discrimination that we experienced growing up. As such, we sometimes pass these negative attitudes along to our children, or we are reluctant to have open, honest dialogue about discrimination with our children because these conversations are too painful.

Others of us may have been raised in families where parents and other relatives conveyed racist and discriminatory attitudes about other groups of people. Even if we do not openly display such behavior, it may affect our beliefs about others on a subconscious level. Knowingly or unknowingly, we can pass along many of these unspoken beliefs to our own children.

Simply living in a society in which discrimination — at times, legal — has played such a prominent role affects us all on some level.

We know that biases are learned. We also know that we as parents impart many of the most important, lasting lessons in our children's lives. If we hope to pass on lessons that emphasize acceptance and tolerance, we have to be willing to live those values. This calls on us to take on the crucial work of reflecting upon and addressing our personal biases. It is work that is rarely easy — and work that must be ongoing.

'It Goes Against My Feelings'

A 35-year-old woman in Minnesota who asked that her name not be used says teaching her 2-year-old son to value diversity is an important part of her parental responsibility.

She works as a public school teacher in an area of the state that has a large Latino population. Growing up in a suburban Minneapolis neighborhood, the woman, who is white, says she did not encounter a lot of diversity, nor did her parents discuss the issue much.

"My dad's family was actually pretty racist, but my mom was quick to tell us why what we said was wrong if we spoke badly about other people."

She sees similarities in her own household, describing her husband's strong and negative beliefs about diversity as very different from her own.

"He will often make negative remarks about the Hispanics in our community. He believes the stereotype that all Hispanics are lazy, and he says these things around our son, which makes me very nervous about what (our son) will think about other children when he starts school."

As a public school teacher, she believes she has learned a lot about stereotypes by simply looking at students she works with who regularly prove them wrong. She considers herself to be very accepting of diversity and hopes to teach her son not to take in messages that stereotype groups of people.

"I don't want my son to think it's OK to think certain groups of people are all one way," she says.

She admits, however, that becoming a mother and making decisions for her child have caused her to question some of her attitudes, especially regarding her son's education.

"There are many parents in our community who are afraid that the needs of so many ESL students in the district's schools may jeopardize their children's educational needs," she says.

"I know that when a majority of kids aren't getting it, they slow the lessons down to accommodate kids that need more help. I am considering placing (my son) in a private school when it's time for him to go to school. I want my son to get a good education, and I just don't want to put him in the middle. Knowing that I'm having these thoughts makes me very uncomfortable, because it goes against my feelings that people are equal and that diversity is a good thing."

She has about three years before she'll have to make a decision about where to enroll her son in school and hopes to find a solution that doesn't go against her beliefs.

"It's something we'll have to figure out. If we do choose private school, I hope he will still be exposed to some diversity, and if not in school, maybe in some outside activities."

A Difficult Conversation to Have

Malynda Coleman of Arizona is a 31-year-old mother of two daughters and a son, ages 7, 4 and almost 1.

While Malynda, who is African American, believes parents should teach children the importance of valuing those who are different from themselves, she has yet to bring the topic up with her own children.

"We haven't gone over it yet because it hasn't been an issue," she says. The topic was, however, an issue during Malynda's childhood. For that reason, Malynda expects talking about racism and discrimination with her own kids may be difficult.

"When I grew up, there was a lot of prejudice in Arizona. I went to school with mostly white kids, and sometimes I did feel like people treated me differently," she says. "But I probably wouldn't bring it up to my kids until they bring it up to me."

While Malynda has yet to discuss issues of racism and discrimination with her children, she believes it is important to reinforce their African American heritage at home - especially because the children attend schools that are predominantly white.

"I buy books and games that talk about who we are," she says. "I make sure they have baby dolls to play with that come in all the different skin tones, because I want them to be able to see that beauty is in all colors. I teach them about different things that blacks have done, like black inventors."

She adds, "I want my kids to know who we are and where we are now, but I guess without making them think about some of the things that I had to go through when I grew up. Hopefully they won't really have to experience those things."

Expert Q&A

Kerby T. Alvy, founder and executive director of the California-based Center for the Improvement of Child Caring, answers questions about how parents' biases and experiences with discrimination affect the raising of their children, and why, when it comes to bias, self-reflection is an important parenting responsibility.

How do parents' own biases impact their children?

Alvy : Much of the time this occurs unconsciously. Parents, in their own behavior - especially facial expressions and posture and body language - convey a lot that kids see. Other times, it can be more obvious, when parents actually talk about their biases out loud. Parents may tell children they don't want them associating with a certain group of people. For some, prejudice can be a family value.

There are also times when parents participate in ethnic self-disparagement. That happens often in groups where negative attitudes from society have affected the way people see and feel about themselves. Parents sometimes perpetuate those attitudes with their children. You see this, for example, in an African American family that looks down upon being "too dark." It is possible to have prejudice against your own.

What happens when parents are not on the same page about what to teach their children about respect for differences?

Alvy : Because bias is learned within the context of intimacy - family relationships are intimate relationships - children can feel some loyalty to uphold negative attitudes if these are the attitudes that even one parent conveys. When parents have different attitudes, those mixed messages put the child in a difficult position. It's important that parents are united about how they want their children to feel about other people and how they want them to think about differences.

Reflecting upon personal bias can mean admitting or acknowledging shortcomings - and admitting that you need help to address those issues. Is this a difficult thing to get parents to do?

Alvy : I think parents in general are interested in being educated. They already have made this commitment to bring up another human. Sometimes that involves training. I believe training is something that parents deserve - it's their right. And it isn't just something for those who are having trouble. It's for all of us.

I think that when you approach it from the view that education and training are what parents need and deserve and not something that is needed because parents have somehow gone wrong, parents are more open to doing the work.

It is honorable for parents to acknowledge that they have bias, and this is not something to be ashamed of. We are all products of this marvelous society; we are products of what we learned as just little kids, before we developed critical faculties. It is impossible for anyone to have been brought up in the United States without having been influenced by racist attitudes and practices.

Parents should not blame themselves but rather accept that fact as the baseline and then be vigilant about always asking ourselves if we are coming from a place of racism or stereotyping. Doing that and asking those questions takes work from all of us.

How can parents be encouraged to address and assess their own biases? What benefits can they expect from doing that work?

Alvy : I believe the biggest challenge of humankind is the ability to accept difference. We need to let parents know that this is a very important issue, even more in our time today than in previous times, as the world and as our cities become more pluralistic.

It's something parents need to be aware of for humanitarian and practical reasons. Most kids are going to school with people from different backgrounds. And for those who are not, for those who are in segregated areas, it's even more important to highlight the issue of out-group relationships.

Parents have to know that it is very important for kids to get along for their own educational advancement. Also, today's workplace is a pluralistic workplace. No matter what our jobs are, we will find ourselves working with people from all different backgrounds. Group work and group decision-making also are an important part of today's workplace. We have to know how to interact with all kinds of people for that to work.

The bottom line is that we as parents should recognize that it is educationally practical and economically practical to lay a foundation for acceptance and tolerance.

A Reflection Exercise

Explore your experiences with and attitudes about difference by asking yourself these questions.

The first time I became aware of differences was when ...
As I was growing up, my parent(s) taught me that people who were different from us were...
As I was growing up, my parent(s) taught me that people who were like us were ...
A time I was mistreated because of my own difference was when ...
A time I mistreated someone for being different was when ...
I feel most comfortable when I am around people who ...
I feel least comfortable when I am around people who ...
The memories I have of differences affect my parenting by ...

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Mahzarin Banaji opened the symposium on Tuesday by recounting the “implicit association” experiments she had done at Yale and at Harvard. The final talk is today at 9 a.m.

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Turning a light on our implicit biases

Brett Milano

Harvard Correspondent

Social psychologist details research at University-wide faculty seminar

Few people would readily admit that they’re biased when it comes to race, gender, age, class, or nationality. But virtually all of us have such biases, even if we aren’t consciously aware of them, according to Mahzarin Banaji, Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology, who studies implicit biases. The trick is figuring out what they are so that we can interfere with their influence on our behavior.

Banaji was the featured speaker at an online seminar Tuesday, “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People,” which was also the title of Banaji’s 2013 book, written with Anthony Greenwald. The presentation was part of Harvard’s first-ever University-wide faculty seminar.

“Precipitated in part by the national reckoning over race, in the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, the phrase ‘implicit bias’ has almost become a household word,” said moderator Judith Singer, Harvard’s senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity. Owing to the high interest on campus, Banaji was slated to present her talk on three different occasions, with the final one at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Banaji opened on Tuesday by recounting the “implicit association” experiments she had done at Yale and at Harvard. The assumptions underlying the research on implicit bias derive from well-established theories of learning and memory and the empirical results are derived from tasks that have their roots in experimental psychology and neuroscience. Banaji’s first experiments found, not surprisingly, that New Englanders associated good things with the Red Sox and bad things with the Yankees.

She then went further by replacing the sports teams with gay and straight, thin and fat, and Black and white. The responses were sometimes surprising: Shown a group of white and Asian faces, a test group at Yale associated the former more with American symbols though all the images were of U.S. citizens. In a further study, the faces of American-born celebrities of Asian descent were associated as less American than those of white celebrities who were in fact European. “This shows how discrepant our implicit bias is from even factual information,” she said.

How can an institution that is almost 400 years old not reveal a history of biases, Banaji said, citing President Charles Eliot’s words on Dexter Gate: “Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind” and asking the audience to think about what he may have meant by the last two words.

She cited Harvard’s current admission strategy of seeking geographic and economic diversity as examples of clear progress — if, as she said, “we are truly interested in bringing the best to Harvard.” She added, “We take these actions consciously, not because they are easy but because they are in our interest and in the interest of society.”

Moving beyond racial issues, Banaji suggested that we sometimes see only what we believe we should see. To illustrate she showed a video clip of a basketball game and asked the audience to count the number of passes between players. Then the psychologist pointed out that something else had occurred in the video — a woman with an umbrella had walked through — but most watchers failed to register it. “You watch the video with a set of expectations, one of which is that a woman with an umbrella will not walk through a basketball game. When the data contradicts an expectation, the data doesn’t always win.”

Expectations, based on experience, may create associations such as “Valley Girl Uptalk” is the equivalent of “not too bright.” But when a quirky way of speaking spreads to a large number of young people from certain generations, it stops being a useful guide. And yet, Banaji said, she has been caught in her dismissal of a great idea presented in uptalk. Banaji stressed that the appropriate course of action is not to ask the person to change the way she speaks but rather for her and other decision makers to know that using language and accents to judge ideas is something people at their own peril.

Banaji closed the talk with a personal story that showed how subtler biases work: She’d once turned down an interview because she had issues with the magazine for which the journalist worked.

The writer accepted this and mentioned she’d been at Yale when Banaji taught there. The professor then surprised herself by agreeing to the interview based on this fragment of shared history that ought not to have influenced her. She urged her colleagues to think about positive actions, such as helping that perpetuate the status quo.

“You and I don’t discriminate the way our ancestors did,” she said. “We don’t go around hurting people who are not members of our own group. We do it in a very civilized way: We discriminate by who we help. The question we should be asking is, ‘Where is my help landing? Is it landing on the most deserved, or just on the one I shared a ZIP code with for four years?’”

To subscribe to short educational modules that help to combat implicit biases, visit outsmartinghumanminds.org .

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Home / Blog

How to Identify and Overcome Your Implicit Bias

July 20, 2021

In an example from 2018, two Black men walked into a Philadelphia Starbucks to attend a business meeting. The manager asked them to leave, and they declined, saying they were waiting for their associate. The manager called the police, who then arrested the men. In interviews after the arrest, the men said they believed the manager had targeted them because of their race. Starbucks responded by holding companywide training to “address implicit bias, promote conscious inclusion, and prevent discrimination.”

We all have biases — unsupported assumptions we make about people or groups. Implicit bias, also commonly known as unconscious bias, refers to the various social stereotypes and judgments that people unknowingly assign to others based on a variety of factors, such as their age, socioeconomic status, weight, gender, race, or sexual orientation. And while these biases aren’t always negative, they’re shaped by a survival instinct that causes people to associate with people they perceive to be similar to them, because they’re deemed to be “safe.”

Examples of unconscious biases are present throughout our personal and professional lives. In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell notes that in the general population, roughly 3.9% of adult men are 6 foot, 2 inches or taller. Yet among a random sampling of CEOs, he found that nearly a third, or roughly 33.3%, fell into this group.

According to Gladwell, this could be linked to an unconscious belief that height correlates with success. This hypothesis is further underscored by a 2020 Chinese study that found that each centimeter in height above average correlated with a 10% to 13% increase in annual earnings.

In an example from 2018, two Black men walked into a Philadelphia Starbucks to attend a business meeting. The manager asked them to leave, and they declined, saying they were waiting for their associate. The manager called the police, who then arrested the men. In interviews after the arrest, the men said they believed the manager had targeted them because of their race. Starbucks responded by holding companywide training to “address implicit bias, promote conscious inclusion, and prevent discrimination.”

Everyone holds implicit beliefs about various social groups, and these biases can have a negative impact in our social, study, and work environments. Implicit biases are harmful because they influence the way we perceive and interact with others — and can lead us to depersonalize people from different groups based on perceived characteristics. Learning to identify and overcome them is an important step toward overcoming prejudice and social and racial stereotypes.

What Is Implicit Bias?

Whereas explicit biases are those that people express openly (e.g., arguing that mothers of young children shouldn’t hold management positions), implicit biases often lie outside of our conscious awareness.

For example, if a manager assigns a tech-heavy task to a young employee instead of an older one based on the unspoken assumption that younger staff members are better with technology, implicit bias is at play. Unconscious bias can also occur in the classroom; for example, students may marginalize non-native English speakers when choosing work groups, with the unconscious assumption that they may not perform as well as native English-speaking peers.

The insidious nature of bias lies in its unconscious nature, as our implicit biases often contradict the values that we aspire to. And when people aren’t even aware that they’re doing something, it can be difficult to correct.

Types of Implicit Bias

The first step toward addressing implicit biases involves learning to recognize them. Among the various implicit biases prevalent throughout society are some such as race and ethnicity bias, age bias, gender bias, LGBTQIA+ community bias, and ability bias.

Race and Ethnicity Bias

Race and ethnicity bias occurs when people assume certain characteristics about someone based on their race or ethnicity, such as assuming that all Asian students are good at math or that all Hispanic individuals are English-language learners, and then take actions that reinforce those biases — unconsciously overlooking a Hispanic employee for a task that requires strong English communication skills, for example.

Age bias occurs when people make assumptions about others based on their age, such as when a hiring manager looking for a social media-savvy applicant rejects a resume because the graduation date tips off that the applicant is middle-aged, unconsciously assuming that the candidate wouldn’t be adept at social media management.

Gender Bias

Gender bias occurs when people assume one gender is better suited for a particular job — such as welding or babysitting — regardless of an applicant’s experience level.

LGBTQIA+ Community Bias

Assuming that lesbians can’t relate to men, and so reflexively declining to pair them with male teammates; assigning gay men to workplace tasks involving design without thinking of the reasons behind their choice; and unconsciously overlooking bisexuals for leadership positions based on an incorrect assumption that they “can’t make up their minds” are examples of LGBTQIA+ community bias. LGBTQIA+ community bias is also prevalent in the healthcare system. For example, when a nurse practitioner asks a female-presenting woman if she has a boyfriend when discussing her sexual history, implicit bias is at play.

Ability Bias

Ability bias is prevalent throughout society. Examples include hiring managers who are less likely to select a candidate with a disability because they unconsciously assume they’ll be more likely to take sick leave, and individuals who assume that all people who struggle with mental illness are prone to violent or dangerous behavior and so, without knowing they’re doing so, restrict them from certain roles.

Other Types of Bias

Implicit bias can take many other forms, such as:

Affinity Bias: The tendency for individuals to gravitate toward people similar to themselves.
Beauty Bias: The tendency for individuals to treat attractive people more favorably.
Name Bias: The tendency for individuals to judge someone based on their name — and thus perceived background — which can negatively impact a company’s hiring processes.
Weight Bias: The tendency for individuals to judge someone negatively, or assume negative things about them, if they’re overweight or underweight.

Overcoming Implicit Bias

People can use several different strategies to overcome and address implicit biases, although this is an area that no one can ever fully master. Examples include striving to identify and understand your implicit biases, proactively becoming more inclusive, and spending time with people who are different from you.

Identify and Evaluate Your Own Biases

The first step toward overcoming your implicit biases is to identify them. Reflect on your biases and be proactive in identifying the negative stereotypes you have about others. One way is to take one of Project Implicit’s Implicit Association Tests, which measure topics such as race, gender, weight, and religion.

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) discusses eight tactics that can be used to reduce implicit biases, using the acronym IMPLICIT:

Introspection: Set aside time to understand your biases by taking a personal inventory of them. This can be done by taking tests to identify the biases you may have.
Mindfulness: Once you understand the biases you hold, be mindful that you’re more likely to give in to them when you’re under pressure or need to make quick decisions. If you’re feeling stressed, pause for a minute, collect yourself, and take a few deep breaths.
Perspective-Taking: If you think you may be stereotyping people or groups, imagine what it would feel like for others to stereotype you.
Learn to Slow Down: Before jumping to conclusions about others, remind yourself of positive examples of people from their age group, class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. This can include friends; colleagues; or public figures, such as athletes, members of the clergy, or local leaders.
Individualization: Remind yourself that all people have individual characteristics that are separate from others within their group. Focus on the things you have in common.
Check Your Messaging: Instead of telling yourself that you don’t see people based on their color, class, or sexual orientation, learn to use statements that embrace inclusivity. For example, Apple Inc.’s inclusion statement circles around the topic of being different together: “At Apple, we’re not all the same, and that’s our greatest strength.”
Institutionalize Fairness: In the workplace, learn to embrace and support diversity. The AAFP suggests individuals use the Equity and Empowerment Lens, which is designed to help organizations improve planning and resource allocation to foster more equitable policies.
Take Two: Overcoming unconscious biases takes time. Understand that this is a lifelong process and that deprogramming your biases requires constant mindfulness and work.

Be Aware and Proactive in Being More Inclusive

Once you’ve identified your personal biases, you can take proactive steps to be more inclusive. For one, check your media bias: Do you find that the blogs you follow, the shows you stream, or the social media accounts you “like” are all produced by people quite similar to you? That kind of affinity is natural, but it also reinforces unconscious biases. Seek out media sources aimed at different groups. You’ll hear challenging opinions and learn how others experience the world.

In the classroom and the workplace, practice intentional inclusion. When asked to form a study or work group, pass over your friends to choose partners from different backgrounds.

Spend Time with People Who Are Different from You

Increasing your contact with different groups can help undermine your subconscious stereotypes.

Societal forces tend to keep us separate from people of different backgrounds and socioeconomic classes. Break out of your usual routine: Join a club sports team or library book group; volunteer with a nonprofit in a different neighborhood; take part in different cultural celebrations (e.g., National Puerto Rican Day, Juneteenth, or Nowruz, the Iranian New Year). This approach is backed by science: Psychological theory suggests that individuals can reduce their prejudices by interacting with people from other races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.

Be Proactive and Take Steps Forward

While implicit bias affects the workplace, school, and social situations, you can work to avoid it through awareness and conscious decision-making. Taking inventory of the biases you have and laying out strategies to overcome them can help lead to a more equitable society for all.

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Become Aware of Personal Bias, and You'll Improve Ethical Practice

To have personal biases is to be human. We all hold our own subjective world views and are influenced and shaped by our experiences, beliefs, values, education, family, friends, peers and others. Being aware of one's biases is vital to both personal well-being and professional success.

People with a high degree of self-awareness are likely to be more adept in one of the most critical competencies for HR professionals, Ethical Practice . When you realize what your personal triggers are—triggers that contribute to the creation of personal biases—you can actively manage, mitigate or avoid them. In the workplace, developing self-awareness helps you navigate potential obstacles to career success. The ultimate goal is to achieve happiness through building and maintaining healthy relationships.

When you are responsible for hiring others, self-awareness of your biases—positive or favorable, as well as negative or unfavorable—is particularly important. Hiring decisions should be based on objective position qualifications and requirements, not the subjective biases of the hiring authority.

For example, it might seem natural to "relate" more to the job applicant from your hometown or alma mater who likes the same music as you do. But it would be irresponsible to extend an offer of employment to that candidate based on these positive or favorable biases. Stated this way it seems self-evident, but if you were unaware of your biases, would you realize how they were influencing your decisions?

A negative or unfavorable bias could be any arbitrary factor not directly related to the bona fide qualifications a candidate must possess to successfully perform a job. Let's say you need someone to plant a tree. You are also aware of a personal bias: that more education, higher credentials or greater years of experience lead to better outcomes. Would you place an ad for a board-certified landscape architect with a master's degree in engineering, a Ph.D. in agriculture and 20 years of experience? You could certainly do that, and your tree would be properly planted. But the overqualified person hired from this approach would be paid more than a gardener and likely would overthink the solution, not be engaged in the work and take longer to complete it. In this case, the bias would blur the hiring decision (in terms of the relevance or business necessity of the bona fide occupational qualification), making it less predictive of performance and costing more money.

Personal biases also can be costly if you fail to attract and retain top talent and select a candidate who is a good fit. Plus, there may be legal implications, if a determination is made that a hiring authority unfairly discriminated against a job applicant.

Be cognizant of these dangers by getting to know your professional self. Help others in the organization do the same. Developing self-awareness is an ongoing process, so take the time to gain the insights that will gradually help reduce the influence of your personal biases. Start by asking yourself two questions: "What are my values?" and "Are my values compatible with my organization's values?" When the two coexist, the result is easier navigation of Ethical Practice and a more satisfying career.

Then, consider the following practical tips:

Test yourself. There are several psychometric tests to choose from, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Big Five, the Predictive Index or the Strengths Finder. These tests help you understand how you perceive people and situations.
Get regular feedback from colleagues—formal (e.g., part of a 180- or 360-degree assessment) or informal (e.g., conversations with supervisors, peers or direct reports).
Pause and reflect. Study yourself and your reactions. How do you react to change? What do you feel when something doesn't go the way you expected it to? Take notes.
Expand your horizons. Proactively look for new experiences to discover more about yourself and your reactions to unfamiliar situations.
Learn to know yourself. This may be the most challenging, but find time for solitude and to relax. It's amazing what you learn about yourself when you sit with your thoughts. Meditate. (Start with a simple breathing exercise. Close your eyes and inhale through your nose for four counts and exhale through your nose for four counts. Repeat for 10 rounds.)

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What Are The Examples Of Personal Biases

Examples of personal biases help us identify situations in our daily lives that we tend to overlook. Personal bias refers to learned beliefs, opinions, or attitudes that people are unaware of and often reinforce stereotypes. These personal biases are unintentional, automatic, and inbuilt, leading to incorrect judgments.

Personal bias: An overview

Developing a diverse workplace should be an absolute preference, but more exposure to personal bias comes with a diverse organizational culture . These biases have a substantial influence on our beliefs and conduct. They impact the workplace hiring process, and influence significant business decisions.

Furthermore, even when these personal biases are prevalent, you can mitigate them with purposeful effort and attention. In addition, being aware of and understanding the different forms of personal prejudices that exist will assist you in determining and fighting them.

Examples of personal bias

Here are some of the top examples of personal biases prevalent in every workplace:

Gender Bias

Gender bias is one of the topmost examples of personal prejudice, which is far more prevalent than you think. When specific characteristics (such as power or confidence) are seen adversely by one gender but positively by the other gender, this bias occurs. Negative gender bias often prefers women, making female workers feel disengaged and undervalued in the organization. In addition, workplaces affected by gender bias risk missing out on numerous opportunities.

Furthermore, one of the prevalent personal bias examples in the gender prejudice context is "Bropropriating". It occurs when a female team offers a suggestion that goes unnoticed and when a male member makes the same suggestion, everyone agrees. This prejudice might cause female workers to remain reluctant to voice their ideas, which can be bothersome and demotivating.

When individuals get the work according to their age, age prejudice occurs. An instance would be a tech-heavy task, where personal bias can lead a supervisor to think that a younger employee would be better suited to the assignment than an elder one.

In addition, assuming a person's expertise or ability is exclusively based on an idea that never remains backed by facts is an ideal example of personal bias. After all, numerous older people are digitally capable, so thinking they wouldn't be right for the position would be unjust.

The Halo or Horn effect

Another typical example of personal bias in a workplace is the halo or horn effect. This prejudice occurs when people use one characteristic or event to generalize someone's performance or personality. The halo effect happens when positive quality is present, while the horn effect ensues when an unfavorable feature is present. It can damage a company's reputation and efficiency by providing employees partial feedback.

When it comes to choosing applicants for a job interview, this type of personal bias comes up often. Supervisors can remain prejudiced when reading names they feel "foreign" despite their best discretions. However, this is still a prevalent issue as it can subdue diversity and stop many eligible candidates from being interviewed.

Similarity Bias

Similar prejudice occurs when we choose to work with individuals like us. It might comprise persons who have graduated from the same educational institutions, employees who have worked for specific businesses, and so forth. Companies influenced by the similarity prejudice risk a lack of diversity in their views and attitudes, leading to less problem-solving aptitudes.

Affinity Bias

The inclination to favor people who share identical backgrounds, interests, and expertise is known as affinity bias. Individuals who are similar to us make us feel more comfortable. Nevertheless, this personal bias could influence hiring decisions. For instance, a hiring manager may employ a job candidate because they went to the same university.

Contract Effect

People often make judgments based on comparisons. As a result, depending on what criterion they compare things, their opinions may remain skewed, known as contrast bias. Positive contrast bias can occur when something is more convenient than usual because people compare it to worse.

For example, a team member is happy to earn a "fulfills expectations" remark on their performance appraisal. Nevertheless, they start to feel uncertain after learning that most of their colleagues obtained "outperforms expectations" ratings on their performance reviews.

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is yet another example of personal bias where people remain inclined to seek out and employ information that demonstrates one's beliefs and anticipations. In other terms, cherry-picking data to prove specific points and impact a person's capacity to think logically and objectively. In addition, it can point to incoherent understandings of data and ignoring information with conflicting opinions.

For instance, a product designer proposes a product vision for the athletic market. Even when the market research indicates slight interest in the product, they try to prove the vision by reaching out to athlete friends who can back the idea.

Status quo bias

This personal prejudice depicts a person's preference for the way something is or for something to stay as it is, indicating a resistance to change. Also, even when this status quo prejudice is a safe option and requires less effort, an organization becomes stagnant.

As the industry landscape continues to move, change is essential for company longevity and innovation. An instance of the status quo prejudice in a business is continuing to employ team members from a similar demographic level, not attempting to drive ahead with diversity goals .

Overconfidence bias

Overconfidence prejudice is the propensity for individuals to believe they are better at some capabilities and skills than they truly are in reality. This inaccurate review of aptitude levels, arising from an illusion of understanding or authority, can lead people to make rash decisions.

For example, an overconfident business leader determines to acquire a company they see increased potential in and feel will get high earnings even though their performance exhibits otherwise. Past success or achievements may lead to an overblown ego. While leading with conviction is a good thing, you must never allow it to get in the path of rational thinking and decision-making.

Perception bias

Perception discrimination happens when people judge or treat other people based on usually incorrect and excessively simplistic assumptions regarding the other community group. It may concern other prejudices such as age, gender, and appearance.

This kind of discrimination may result in an overall decline of a business's diversity objectives and social exclusion.

The bottom line

While it is impossible to eradicate personal biases in a person entirely, awareness and training can assist in overcoming these personal unconscious biases. In addition, the most suitable way to reduce the adverse impact of personal prejudice is exposure to individuals who are distinct from us. Furthermore, increased one-on-one communications and working towards the same goal can also help people break the stereotype and welcome people from every walk of life.

Apart from that, companies can provide their employees with an opportunity to work at cross-functional levels to earn exposure to diverse viewpoints and roles . As hiring supervisors present the most risk from working on their prejudices, offer them a chance to promote cross-functional communities to overcome their biases.

Finally, we can say that personal prejudice offers numerous risks to a company. Therefore, taking measures to overcome its consequences can assist you in improving diversity and creating more accurate hiring approaches — resulting in a more adaptable organization where it's easier for innovation to succeed.

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12.8 Spotlight on … Bias in Language and Research

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Avoid bias and stereotyping in your writing.
Evaluate sources for language bias and stereotyping.

When you begin any research project, it is important to have set checks and balances to ensure you are not unknowingly imposing your own biases into your research. A bias is a personal and usually unreasoned judgment, or a prejudice. Although it may be impossible to function without any bias (good or bad), you can consider possible components of bias in your research. No document can be completely objective, for all documents are created by people who have been socialized in some way; therefore, it is helpful to think about the biases of authors of research documents. Many researchers are clear about their biases and state them in introductions to their writings, whereas others may use—or omit—evidence in a way that implies bias for or against the topic.

As a student researcher, seek to be as transparent and critically self-reflective as possible about your preconceptions and language use. Although you will revisit the concept of bias in source selection in The Research Process: Where to Look for Existing Sources , in this section you will look at bias in topic choice and language use.

Language Bias

Language bias refers to words and expressions that are offensive, demeaning, or prejudicial toward individuals or groups on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, social class, appearance, physical or mental abilities, or sexual orientation. One form of language bias is sexist language that includes only one gender. The most common occurrence is use of the word man or men to stand for all people—including those who are not male. Language has changed to be more inclusive, with terms such as firefighter replacing fireman and mail carrier replacing mailman .

Another kind of language bias focuses on people’s health or abilities, indicating a person as a “victim” of a certain disease or “suffering from it.” Use unbiased language to identify the person as someone “with X disease.” Similarly, refer to a “person who is blind” rather than a “blind person.” This kind of language focuses on the person, not the disease or ability.

To avoid language bias, follow these guidelines:

Use currently accepted terminology when referring to groups of people. If you are writing about a group of people and are unsure of the proper terminology, research the most recent usage patterns before you write. The same is true for pronoun references, about which you can find more information in Editing Focus: Pronouns and Pronouns .
Be sensitive when referring to people with disabilities by using a “people first” approach. For example, say “a person who uses a wheelchair” instead of “a wheelchair-bound person.”
Avoid stereotyping—that is, attributing positive or negative characteristics to people on the basis of groups to which they belong. Although not strictly linguistic, stereotyping comes through in making assumptions about people. A stereotypical attitude would be to assume that all or most rich people act in certain ways and, conversely, that all or most poor people act in certain ways. Another stereotypical attitude would be to assume that a person who comes from a particular area of the country adheres to a certain political agenda.

Assignment: Reviewing Your Research Essay for Language Bias

First, review your essay, and speculate as to biases or blocks you may have incorporated while researching and writing. Freewrite, reflecting on these possibilities. Next, go through your essay one section at a time, and highlight any people references, pronouns, biased language, and instances of possible stereotyping. Using the information above and your reflective freewrite, complete a bias chart like the one shown in Table 12.9 . Next, exchange your essay with two other classmates to see whether they detect bias of which you were unaware. After receiving feedback from two or three people, form a group and discuss what each of you found and how to use alternative language or references. Finally, revisit your freewriting after collaborating with your classmates to reconsider what you wrote before. Add a section to the freewrite in which you relate what your group discussed and what you may have learned from that discussion.

Essay Section	Essay Language	Possible Bias	Possible Revision

Publish Your Work

After completing your argumentative research paper, you should have a product to be proud of. Your instructor may have a plan to publish papers written by class members, or you may be interested in publishing on your own and joining a wider scholarly conversation. Consider submitting your work to one of these journals that publish undergraduate research:

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research
Crossing Borders: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship
Liberated Arts: A Journal for Undergraduate Research
Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research

In addition, if you have designed your research project as a solution to a local problem, consider finding venues to disseminate the information to those for whom it would be the most useful. This decision may mean adjusting the format, tone, language, and/or conventions of your work to address the needs of a specific audience.

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Bias — Understanding Cognitive Bias: Impact and Debiasing Strategies

Understanding Cognitive Bias: Impact and Debiasing Strategies

Categories: Bias

About this sample

Words: 807 |

Published: Sep 25, 2018

Words: 807 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

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Should follow an “upside down” triangle format, meaning, the writer should start off broad and introduce the text and author or topic being discussed, and then get more specific to the thesis statement.

Provides a foundational overview, outlining the historical context and introducing key information that will be further explored in the essay, setting the stage for the argument to follow.

Cornerstone of the essay, presenting the central argument that will be elaborated upon and supported with evidence and analysis throughout the rest of the paper.

The topic sentence serves as the main point or focus of a paragraph in an essay, summarizing the key idea that will be discussed in that paragraph.

The body of each paragraph builds an argument in support of the topic sentence, citing information from sources as evidence.

After each piece of evidence is provided, the author should explain HOW and WHY the evidence supports the claim.

Should follow a right side up triangle format, meaning, specifics should be mentioned first such as restating the thesis, and then get more broad about the topic at hand. Lastly, leave the reader with something to think about and ponder once they are done reading.

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ENG 112: Writing and Community

Finding the Right Words

What Is Bias?

Bias and multiple viewpoints.

Choosing Sources
Searching Catalogs and Databases
The Writing Process
Level Up: LibKey Nomad
Level Up: Google Scholar

Personal narratives are full of bias--the way we perceive the world is filtered through our personal beliefs, wants, and experiences. Bias is an inclination towards or away from an idea or concept. This bias influences how we tell a story. Often, people think of bias in negative ways--prejudice, discrimination, intolerance--but bias is a little less extreme than prejudice, and it can be used in a positive way. Persuasive speeches and narratives are all about bias coupled with facts; you are attempting to persuade people to do or think a certain way based on facts, yes--but usually these speeches are often peppered with emotional narratives, too. Have you or someone you know received a letter in the mail from a charity asking for a donation? Yes, they'll tell you facts about how many people are homeless or how many abused dogs they rescue in a year, but they couple this with emotional impact, using photos and stories about how "Ryan" lost his job or how "Prince", a pit bull, was tied out on a hot day with no water. In some cases, they will ask for something specific because they want you, as their audience, to know how you can personally make a difference (for just $3 a month, you can help provide Prince with medical care and food). You're more likely to give if you know your money is going to feed an abused dog, right? And giving that dog a name makes it seem more personal--you're not just helping any dog, you're helping Prince . Who wouldn't want to help a poor, defenseless dog, right?

But what if you were hurt by a dog, maybe a pit bull that looked a lot like Prince, and now you're afraid of dogs, and pit bulls in particular? Your own bias may tell you that Prince was tied up because he's mean, even if he's really not, and you don't want to give money to an organization that helps pit bulls--or maybe even dogs in general. Your personal bias against dogs means you probably get rid of the letter without even opening it. Personal experiences lead to personal beliefs and bias, and that influences behavior.

When thinking about your stakeholders, keep in mind that your topic is not neutral to them--they're going to have their own opinions and viewpoints, perhaps shaped by personal experiences that may be traumatic or may be wonderful. (Not all biases are against something--some are for something.) Thinking about who your stakeholders are not only helps you think about the who that is impacted, but the how and the why. This could also lead to what research you'll be looking for for your facts--do you need to look for polls or surveys? Statistics? Important court cases? Past historical events that were newsworthy? Think about your topic and ask yourself: "If I were this person, how would this effect me?"

Let's take this meme as an example:

The first two ways I can think to approach this meme would be the pet obesity problem, and the human obesity problem. (Remember, with animal memes, it's possible the creator is using the animal as a stand-in for a human.) So depending on which way I go, I could choose a veterinarian or a doctor (or nurse) as a stakeholder. What would they have to say about this? What would, if we choose to use the human angle, an overweight person say? Is this offensive and if so, how? Why? Really study your meme for both the good and bad stereotypes, prejudices, and biases, including your own. What do you think--and how does your bias shift if you think about it in terms of the animal versus the human projection?

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May 4, 2024

Implicit Bias Hurts Everyone. Here’s How to Overcome It

The environment shapes stereotypes and biases, but it is possible to recognize and change them

By Corey S. Powell & OpenMind Magazine

Serious woman of color scientist wearing protective eyewear in white coat.

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We all have a natural tendency to view the world in black and white—to the extent that it's hard not to hear "black" and immediately think "white." Fortunately, there are ways to activate the more subtle shadings in our minds. Kristin Pauker is a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa who studies stereotyping and prejudice, with a focus on how our environment shapes our biases. In this podcast and Q&A, she tells OpenMind co-editor Corey S. Powell how researchers measure and study bias, and how we can use their findings to make a more equitable world. (This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

When I hear “bias,” the first thing I think of is a conscious prejudice. But you study something a lot more subtle, which researchers call “implicit bias.” What is it, and how does it affect us?

Implicit bias is a form of bias that influences our decision-making, our interactions and our behaviors. It can be based on any social group membership, like race, gender, age, sexual orientation or even the color of your shirt. Often we’re not aware of the ways in which these biases are influencing us. Sometimes implicit bias gets called unconscious bias, which is a little bit of a misnomer. We can be aware of these biases, so it's not necessarily unconscious. But we often are not aware of the way in which they're influencing our behaviors and thoughts.

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You make it sound like almost anything can set us off. Why is bias so deeply ingrained in our heads?

Our brain likes to categorize things because it makes our world easier to process. We make categories as soon as we start learning about something. So we categorize fruits, we categorize vegetables, we categorize chairs, we categorize tables for their function—and we also categorize people. We know from research that categorization happens early in life, as early as 5 or 6, in some cases even 3 or 4. Categorization creates shortcuts that help us process information faster, but that also can lead us to make assumptions that may or may not hold in particular situations. What categories we use are directed by the environment that we're in. Our environment already has told us certain categories are really important, such as gender, age, race and ethnicity. We quickly form an association when we’re assigned to a particular group.

Listen to the Podcast

Kristin Pauker: We have to think about ways in which we can change the features of our environment—so that our weeds aren’t so prolific.

In your research, you use a diagnostic tool called an “ implicit association test .” How does it work, and what does it tell you?

Typically someone would show you examples of individuals who belong to categories, and then ask you to categorize those individuals. For example, you would see faces and you would categorize them as black and white. You’re asked to make a fast categorization, as fast as you can. Then you are presented with words that could be categorized as good or bad, like “hero” and “evil,” and again asked to categorize the words quickly. The complicated part happens when, say, good and white are paired together or bad and black are paired together. You're asked to categorize the faces and the words as you were before. Then it's flipped, so that bad and white are paired together, and good and black are paired together. You’re asked to make the categorizations once again with the new pairings.

The point of the test is, how quickly do you associate certain concepts together? Oftentimes if certain concepts are more closely paired in your mind, then it will be easier for you to make that association. Your response will be faster. When the pairing is less familiar to you or less closely associated, it takes you longer to respond. Additional processing needs to occur.

When you run this implicit association test on your test subjects or your students, are they often surprised by the results?

We’ve done it as a demonstration in the classroom, and I've had students come up and complain saying, “There’s something wrong with this test. I don't believe it.” They’ll try to poke all kinds of holes in the test because it gave them a score that wasn’t what they felt it should be according to what they think about themselves. This is the case, I think, for almost anyone. I've taken an implicit association test and found that I have a stronger association with men in science than women in science . And I'm a woman scientist! We can have and hold these biases because they’re prevalent in society, even if they’re biases that may not be beneficial to the group we belong to.

Studies show that even after you make people aware of their implicit biases, they can’t necessarily get rid of them. So are we stuck with our biases?

Those biases are hard to change and control, but that doesn't mean that they are un controllable and un changeable. It’s just that oftentimes there are many features in our environment that reinforce those biases. I was thinking about an analogy. Right now I’m struggling with weeds growing in my yard, invasive vines. It’s hard because there are so many things supporting the growth of these vines. I live in a place that has lots of sun and rain. Similarly, there’s so much in our environment that is supporting our biases. It’s hard to just cut them off and be like, OK, they're gone. We have to think about ways in which we can change the features of our environment—so that our weeds aren’t so prolific.

Common programs aimed at reducing bias, such as corporate diversity training workshops, often seem to stop at the stage of making people aware that bias exists. Is that why they haven’t worked very well ?

If people are told that they’re biased, the reaction that many of them have is, “Oh, that means I'm a racist? I'm not a racist!” Very defensive, because we associate this idea of being biased with a moral judgment that I'm a bad person. Because of that, awareness-raising can have the opposite of the intended effect. Being told that they're biased can make people worried and defensive, and they push back against that idea. They're not willing to accept it.

A lot of the diversity training models are based on the idea that you can just tell people about their biases and then get them to accept them and work on them. But, A, some people don't want to accept their biases. B, some people don't want to work on them. And C, the messaging around how we talk about these biases creates a misunderstanding that they can’t be changed. We talk about biases that are unconscious, biases that we all hold, that are formed early in life—it creates the idea, “Well, there’s nothing I can do, so why should I even try?”

How can we do better in talking about bias, so that people are more likely to embrace change instead of becoming defensive or defeated?

Some of it is about messaging. Biases are hard to change, but we should be discussing the ways in which these biases can change, even though it might take some time and work. You have to emphasize the idea that these things can change, or else why would we try? There is research showing that if you just give people their bias score, normally that doesn't result in them becoming more aware of their bias. But if you combine that score with a message that this is something controllable, people are less defensive and more willing to accept their biases.

What about concrete actions we can take to reduce the negative impact of implicit bias?

One thing is thinking about when we do interventions. A lot of times we’re trying to make changes in the workplace. We should be thinking more about how we're raising our children. The types of environments we're exposing them to, and the features that are in our schools , are good places to think about creating change. Prejudice is something that’s malleable.

Another thing is not always focusing on the person. So much of what we do in these interventions is try to change individual people's biases. But we can also think about our environment. What are the ways in which our environments are communicating these biases, and how can we make changes there? A clever idea people have been thinking about is trying to change consequences of biases. There's a researcher, Jason A. Okonofua , who talks about this and calls it “sidelining bias.” You're not targeting the person and trying to get rid of their biases. You're targeting the situations that support those biases. If you can change that situation and kind of cut it off, then the consequences of bias might not be as bad. It could lead to a judgment that is not so influenced by those biases.

There’s research showing that people make fairer hiring decisions when they work off tightly structured interviews and qualification checklists, which leave less room for subjective reactions. Is that the kind of “sidelining” strategy you’re talking about?

Yes, that’s been shown to be an effective way to sideline bias. If you set those criteria ahead of time, it's harder for you to shift a preference based on the person that you would like to hire. Another good example is finding ways to slow down the processes we're working on. Biases are more likely to influence our decision-making when we have to make really quick decisions or when we are stressed—which is the case for a lot of important decisions that we make.

Jennifer Eberhardt does research on these kinds of implicit biases. She worked with NextDoor (a neighborhood monitoring app) when they noticed a lot of racial profiling in the things people were reporting in their neighborhood. She worked with them to change the way that people report a suspicious person. Basically they added some extra steps to the checklist when you report something. Rather than just reporting that someone looks suspicious, a user had to indicate what about the behavior itself was suspicious. And then there was an explicit warning that they couldn't just say the reason for the suspicious behavior was someone's race. Including extra check steps slowed down the process and reduced the profiling.

It does feel like we’re making progress in addressing bias but, damn, it’s been a slow process. Where can we go from here?

A big part that’s missing in the research on implicit bias is creating tools that are useful for people. We still don’t know a lot about bias, but we know a lot more than we're willing to put into practice. For instance, creating resources for parents to be able to have conversations about bias , and to be aware that the everyday things we do are really important. This is something that many people want to tackle, but they don’t know how to do it. Just asking questions about what is usual and what is unusual has really interesting effects. We’ve done that with our son. He’d say something and I would ask, “Why is that something that only boys can do? You say girls can't do that, is that really the case? Can you think of examples where the opposite is true?”

This Q&A is part of a series of OpenMind essays, podcasts and videos supported by a generous grant from the Pulitzer Center 's Truth Decay initiative.

This story originally appeared on OpenMind , a digital magazine tackling science controversies and deceptions.

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Knowledge Base
Research bias

Types of Bias in Research | Definition & Examples

Research bias results from any deviation from the truth, causing distorted results and wrong conclusions. Bias can occur at any phase of your research, including during data collection , data analysis , interpretation, or publication. Research bias can occur in both qualitative and quantitative research .

Understanding research bias is important for several reasons.

Bias exists in all research, across research designs , and is difficult to eliminate.
Bias can occur at any stage of the research process .
Bias impacts the validity and reliability of your findings, leading to misinterpretation of data.

It is almost impossible to conduct a study without some degree of research bias. It’s crucial for you to be aware of the potential types of bias, so you can minimize them.

For example, the success rate of the program will likely be affected if participants start to drop out ( attrition ). Participants who become disillusioned due to not losing weight may drop out, while those who succeed in losing weight are more likely to continue. This in turn may bias the findings towards more favorable results.

Information bias, interviewer bias.

Publication bias

Researcher bias

Response bias.

Selection bias

Cognitive bias

How to avoid bias in research

Other types of research bias, frequently asked questions about research bias.

Information bias , also called measurement bias, arises when key study variables are inaccurately measured or classified. Information bias occurs during the data collection step and is common in research studies that involve self-reporting and retrospective data collection. It can also result from poor interviewing techniques or differing levels of recall from participants.

The main types of information bias are:

Recall bias
Observer bias

Performance bias

Regression to the mean (rtm).

Over a period of four weeks, you ask students to keep a journal, noting how much time they spent on their smartphones along with any symptoms like muscle twitches, aches, or fatigue.

Recall bias is a type of information bias. It occurs when respondents are asked to recall events in the past and is common in studies that involve self-reporting.

As a rule of thumb, infrequent events (e.g., buying a house or a car) will be memorable for longer periods of time than routine events (e.g., daily use of public transportation). You can reduce recall bias by running a pilot survey and carefully testing recall periods. If possible, test both shorter and longer periods, checking for differences in recall.

A group of children who have been diagnosed, called the case group
A group of children who have not been diagnosed, called the control group

Since the parents are being asked to recall what their children generally ate over a period of several years, there is high potential for recall bias in the case group.

The best way to reduce recall bias is by ensuring your control group will have similar levels of recall bias to your case group. Parents of children who have childhood cancer, which is a serious health problem, are likely to be quite concerned about what may have contributed to the cancer.

Thus, if asked by researchers, these parents are likely to think very hard about what their child ate or did not eat in their first years of life. Parents of children with other serious health problems (aside from cancer) are also likely to be quite concerned about any diet-related question that researchers ask about.

Observer bias is the tendency of research participants to see what they expect or want to see, rather than what is actually occurring. Observer bias can affect the results in observationa l and experimental studies, where subjective judgment (such as assessing a medical image) or measurement (such as rounding blood pressure readings up or down) is part of the d ata collection process.

Observer bias leads to over- or underestimation of true values, which in turn compromise the validity of your findings. You can reduce observer bias by using double-blinded and single-blinded research methods.

Based on discussions you had with other researchers before starting your observations , you are inclined to think that medical staff tend to simply call each other when they need specific patient details or have questions about treatments.

At the end of the observation period, you compare notes with your colleague. Your conclusion was that medical staff tend to favor phone calls when seeking information, while your colleague noted down that medical staff mostly rely on face-to-face discussions. Seeing that your expectations may have influenced your observations, you and your colleague decide to conduct semi-structured interviews with medical staff to clarify the observed events. Note: Observer bias and actor–observer bias are not the same thing.

Performance bias is unequal care between study groups. Performance bias occurs mainly in medical research experiments, if participants have knowledge of the planned intervention, therapy, or drug trial before it begins.

Studies about nutrition, exercise outcomes, or surgical interventions are very susceptible to this type of bias. It can be minimized by using blinding , which prevents participants and/or researchers from knowing who is in the control or treatment groups. If blinding is not possible, then using objective outcomes (such as hospital admission data) is the best approach.

When the subjects of an experimental study change or improve their behavior because they are aware they are being studied, this is called the Hawthorne effect (or observer effect). Similarly, the John Henry effect occurs when members of a control group are aware they are being compared to the experimental group. This causes them to alter their behavior in an effort to compensate for their perceived disadvantage.

Regression to the mean (RTM) is a statistical phenomenon that refers to the fact that a variable that shows an extreme value on its first measurement will tend to be closer to the center of its distribution on a second measurement.

Medical research is particularly sensitive to RTM. Here, interventions aimed at a group or a characteristic that is very different from the average (e.g., people with high blood pressure) will appear to be successful because of the regression to the mean. This can lead researchers to misinterpret results, describing a specific intervention as causal when the change in the extreme groups would have happened anyway.

In general, among people with depression, certain physical and mental characteristics have been observed to deviate from the population mean .

This could lead you to think that the intervention was effective when those treated showed improvement on measured post-treatment indicators, such as reduced severity of depressive episodes.

However, given that such characteristics deviate more from the population mean in people with depression than in people without depression, this improvement could be attributed to RTM.

Interviewer bias stems from the person conducting the research study. It can result from the way they ask questions or react to responses, but also from any aspect of their identity, such as their sex, ethnicity, social class, or perceived attractiveness.

Interviewer bias distorts responses, especially when the characteristics relate in some way to the research topic. Interviewer bias can also affect the interviewer’s ability to establish rapport with the interviewees, causing them to feel less comfortable giving their honest opinions about sensitive or personal topics.

Participant: “I like to solve puzzles, or sometimes do some gardening.”

You: “I love gardening, too!”

In this case, seeing your enthusiastic reaction could lead the participant to talk more about gardening.

Establishing trust between you and your interviewees is crucial in order to ensure that they feel comfortable opening up and revealing their true thoughts and feelings. At the same time, being overly empathetic can influence the responses of your interviewees, as seen above.

Publication bias occurs when the decision to publish research findings is based on their nature or the direction of their results. Studies reporting results that are perceived as positive, statistically significant , or favoring the study hypotheses are more likely to be published due to publication bias.

Publication bias is related to data dredging (also called p -hacking ), where statistical tests on a set of data are run until something statistically significant happens. As academic journals tend to prefer publishing statistically significant results, this can pressure researchers to only submit statistically significant results. P -hacking can also involve excluding participants or stopping data collection once a p value of 0.05 is reached. However, this leads to false positive results and an overrepresentation of positive results in published academic literature.

Researcher bias occurs when the researcher’s beliefs or expectations influence the research design or data collection process. Researcher bias can be deliberate (such as claiming that an intervention worked even if it didn’t) or unconscious (such as letting personal feelings, stereotypes, or assumptions influence research questions ).

The unconscious form of researcher bias is associated with the Pygmalion effect (or Rosenthal effect ), where the researcher’s high expectations (e.g., that patients assigned to a treatment group will succeed) lead to better performance and better outcomes.

Researcher bias is also sometimes called experimenter bias, but it applies to all types of investigative projects, rather than only to experimental designs .

Good question: What are your views on alcohol consumption among your peers?
Bad question: Do you think it’s okay for young people to drink so much?

Response bias is a general term used to describe a number of different situations where respondents tend to provide inaccurate or false answers to self-report questions, such as those asked on surveys or in structured interviews .

This happens because when people are asked a question (e.g., during an interview ), they integrate multiple sources of information to generate their responses. Because of that, any aspect of a research study may potentially bias a respondent. Examples include the phrasing of questions in surveys, how participants perceive the researcher, or the desire of the participant to please the researcher and to provide socially desirable responses.

Response bias also occurs in experimental medical research. When outcomes are based on patients’ reports, a placebo effect can occur. Here, patients report an improvement despite having received a placebo, not an active medical treatment.

While interviewing a student, you ask them:

“Do you think it’s okay to cheat on an exam?”

Common types of response bias are:

Acquiescence bias

Demand characteristics.

Social desirability bias

Courtesy bias

Question-order bias

Extreme responding

Acquiescence bias is the tendency of respondents to agree with a statement when faced with binary response options like “agree/disagree,” “yes/no,” or “true/false.” Acquiescence is sometimes referred to as “yea-saying.”

This type of bias occurs either due to the participant’s personality (i.e., some people are more likely to agree with statements than disagree, regardless of their content) or because participants perceive the researcher as an expert and are more inclined to agree with the statements presented to them.

Q: Are you a social person?

People who are inclined to agree with statements presented to them are at risk of selecting the first option, even if it isn’t fully supported by their lived experiences.

In order to control for acquiescence, consider tweaking your phrasing to encourage respondents to make a choice truly based on their preferences. Here’s an example:

Q: What would you prefer?

A quiet night in
A night out with friends

Demand characteristics are cues that could reveal the research agenda to participants, risking a change in their behaviors or views. Ensuring that participants are not aware of the research objectives is the best way to avoid this type of bias.

On each occasion, patients reported their pain as being less than prior to the operation. While at face value this seems to suggest that the operation does indeed lead to less pain, there is a demand characteristic at play. During the interviews, the researcher would unconsciously frown whenever patients reported more post-op pain. This increased the risk of patients figuring out that the researcher was hoping that the operation would have an advantageous effect.

Social desirability bias is the tendency of participants to give responses that they believe will be viewed favorably by the researcher or other participants. It often affects studies that focus on sensitive topics, such as alcohol consumption or sexual behavior.

You are conducting face-to-face semi-structured interviews with a number of employees from different departments. When asked whether they would be interested in a smoking cessation program, there was widespread enthusiasm for the idea.

Note that while social desirability and demand characteristics may sound similar, there is a key difference between them. Social desirability is about conforming to social norms, while demand characteristics revolve around the purpose of the research.

Courtesy bias stems from a reluctance to give negative feedback, so as to be polite to the person asking the question. Small-group interviewing where participants relate in some way to each other (e.g., a student, a teacher, and a dean) is especially prone to this type of bias.

Question order bias

Question order bias occurs when the order in which interview questions are asked influences the way the respondent interprets and evaluates them. This occurs especially when previous questions provide context for subsequent questions.

When answering subsequent questions, respondents may orient their answers to previous questions (called a halo effect ), which can lead to systematic distortion of the responses.

Extreme responding is the tendency of a respondent to answer in the extreme, choosing the lowest or highest response available, even if that is not their true opinion. Extreme responding is common in surveys using Likert scales , and it distorts people’s true attitudes and opinions.

Disposition towards the survey can be a source of extreme responding, as well as cultural components. For example, people coming from collectivist cultures tend to exhibit extreme responses in terms of agreement, while respondents indifferent to the questions asked may exhibit extreme responses in terms of disagreement.

Selection bias is a general term describing situations where bias is introduced into the research from factors affecting the study population.

Common types of selection bias are:

Sampling or ascertainment bias

Attrition bias
Self-selection (or volunteer) bias
Survivorship bias
Nonresponse bias
Undercoverage bias

Sampling bias occurs when your sample (the individuals, groups, or data you obtain for your research) is selected in a way that is not representative of the population you are analyzing. Sampling bias threatens the external validity of your findings and influences the generalizability of your results.

The easiest way to prevent sampling bias is to use a probability sampling method . This way, each member of the population you are studying has an equal chance of being included in your sample.

Sampling bias is often referred to as ascertainment bias in the medical field.

Attrition bias occurs when participants who drop out of a study systematically differ from those who remain in the study. Attrition bias is especially problematic in randomized controlled trials for medical research because participants who do not like the experience or have unwanted side effects can drop out and affect your results.

You can minimize attrition bias by offering incentives for participants to complete the study (e.g., a gift card if they successfully attend every session). It’s also a good practice to recruit more participants than you need, or minimize the number of follow-up sessions or questions.

You provide a treatment group with weekly one-hour sessions over a two-month period, while a control group attends sessions on an unrelated topic. You complete five waves of data collection to compare outcomes: a pretest survey, three surveys during the program, and a posttest survey.

Self-selection or volunteer bias

Self-selection bias (also called volunteer bias ) occurs when individuals who volunteer for a study have particular characteristics that matter for the purposes of the study.

Volunteer bias leads to biased data, as the respondents who choose to participate will not represent your entire target population. You can avoid this type of bias by using random assignment —i.e., placing participants in a control group or a treatment group after they have volunteered to participate in the study.

Closely related to volunteer bias is nonresponse bias , which occurs when a research subject declines to participate in a particular study or drops out before the study’s completion.

Considering that the hospital is located in an affluent part of the city, volunteers are more likely to have a higher socioeconomic standing, higher education, and better nutrition than the general population.

Survivorship bias occurs when you do not evaluate your data set in its entirety: for example, by only analyzing the patients who survived a clinical trial.

This strongly increases the likelihood that you draw (incorrect) conclusions based upon those who have passed some sort of selection process—focusing on “survivors” and forgetting those who went through a similar process and did not survive.

Note that “survival” does not always mean that participants died! Rather, it signifies that participants did not successfully complete the intervention.

However, most college dropouts do not become billionaires. In fact, there are many more aspiring entrepreneurs who dropped out of college to start companies and failed than succeeded.

Nonresponse bias occurs when those who do not respond to a survey or research project are different from those who do in ways that are critical to the goals of the research. This is very common in survey research, when participants are unable or unwilling to participate due to factors like lack of the necessary skills, lack of time, or guilt or shame related to the topic.

You can mitigate nonresponse bias by offering the survey in different formats (e.g., an online survey, but also a paper version sent via post), ensuring confidentiality , and sending them reminders to complete the survey.

You notice that your surveys were conducted during business hours, when the working-age residents were less likely to be home.

Undercoverage bias occurs when you only sample from a subset of the population you are interested in. Online surveys can be particularly susceptible to undercoverage bias. Despite being more cost-effective than other methods, they can introduce undercoverage bias as a result of excluding people who do not use the internet.

Cognitive bias refers to a set of predictable (i.e., nonrandom) errors in thinking that arise from our limited ability to process information objectively. Rather, our judgment is influenced by our values, memories, and other personal traits. These create “ mental shortcuts” that help us process information intuitively and decide faster. However, cognitive bias can also cause us to misunderstand or misinterpret situations, information, or other people.

Because of cognitive bias, people often perceive events to be more predictable after they happen.

Although there is no general agreement on how many types of cognitive bias exist, some common types are:

Anchoring bias
Framing effect
Actor-observer bias
Availability heuristic (or availability bias)
Confirmation bias
Halo effect
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

Anchoring bias

Anchoring bias is people’s tendency to fixate on the first piece of information they receive, especially when it concerns numbers. This piece of information becomes a reference point or anchor. Because of that, people base all subsequent decisions on this anchor. For example, initial offers have a stronger influence on the outcome of negotiations than subsequent ones.

Framing effect

Framing effect refers to our tendency to decide based on how the information about the decision is presented to us. In other words, our response depends on whether the option is presented in a negative or positive light, e.g., gain or loss, reward or punishment, etc. This means that the same information can be more or less attractive depending on the wording or what features are highlighted.

Actor–observer bias

Actor–observer bias occurs when you attribute the behavior of others to internal factors, like skill or personality, but attribute your own behavior to external or situational factors.

In other words, when you are the actor in a situation, you are more likely to link events to external factors, such as your surroundings or environment. However, when you are observing the behavior of others, you are more likely to associate behavior with their personality, nature, or temperament.

One interviewee recalls a morning when it was raining heavily. They were rushing to drop off their kids at school in order to get to work on time. As they were driving down the highway, another car cut them off as they were trying to merge. They tell you how frustrated they felt and exclaim that the other driver must have been a very rude person.

At another point, the same interviewee recalls that they did something similar: accidentally cutting off another driver while trying to take the correct exit. However, this time, the interviewee claimed that they always drive very carefully, blaming their mistake on poor visibility due to the rain.

Availability heuristic

Availability heuristic (or availability bias) describes the tendency to evaluate a topic using the information we can quickly recall to our mind, i.e., that is available to us. However, this is not necessarily the best information, rather it’s the most vivid or recent. Even so, due to this mental shortcut, we tend to think that what we can recall must be right and ignore any other information.

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out information in a way that supports our existing beliefs while also rejecting any information that contradicts those beliefs. Confirmation bias is often unintentional but still results in skewed results and poor decision-making.

Let’s say you grew up with a parent in the military. Chances are that you have a lot of complex emotions around overseas deployments. This can lead you to over-emphasize findings that “prove” that your lived experience is the case for most families, neglecting other explanations and experiences.

The halo effect refers to situations whereby our general impression about a person, a brand, or a product is shaped by a single trait. It happens, for instance, when we automatically make positive assumptions about people based on something positive we notice, while in reality, we know little about them.

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (or frequency illusion) occurs when something that you recently learned seems to appear “everywhere” soon after it was first brought to your attention. However, this is not the case. What has increased is your awareness of something, such as a new word or an old song you never knew existed, not their frequency.

While very difficult to eliminate entirely, research bias can be mitigated through proper study design and implementation. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you get started.

Clearly explain in your methodology section how your research design will help you meet the research objectives and why this is the most appropriate research design.
In quantitative studies , make sure that you use probability sampling to select the participants. If you’re running an experiment, make sure you use random assignment to assign your control and treatment groups.
Account for participants who withdraw or are lost to follow-up during the study. If they are withdrawing for a particular reason, it could bias your results. This applies especially to longer-term or longitudinal studies .
Use triangulation to enhance the validity and credibility of your findings.
Phrase your survey or interview questions in a neutral, non-judgmental tone. Be very careful that your questions do not steer your participants in any particular direction.
Consider using a reflexive journal. Here, you can log the details of each interview , paying special attention to any influence you may have had on participants. You can include these in your final analysis.
Baader–Meinhof phenomenon
Sampling bias
Ascertainment bias
Self-selection bias
Hawthorne effect
Omitted variable bias
Pygmalion effect
Placebo effect

Research bias affects the validity and reliability of your research findings , leading to false conclusions and a misinterpretation of the truth. This can have serious implications in areas like medical research where, for example, a new form of treatment may be evaluated.

Observer bias occurs when the researcher’s assumptions, views, or preconceptions influence what they see and record in a study, while actor–observer bias refers to situations where respondents attribute internal factors (e.g., bad character) to justify other’s behavior and external factors (difficult circumstances) to justify the same behavior in themselves.

Response bias is a general term used to describe a number of different conditions or factors that cue respondents to provide inaccurate or false answers during surveys or interviews. These factors range from the interviewer’s perceived social position or appearance to the the phrasing of questions in surveys.

Nonresponse bias occurs when the people who complete a survey are different from those who did not, in ways that are relevant to the research topic. Nonresponse can happen because people are either not willing or not able to participate.

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